Let’s start big. It’s official. Climate change is no longer a topic of the presidential election banter. Since pretty much no one has mentioned climate
change for the past three months, we must be free and clear. As I watch the East Coast get hammered by Hurricane Sandy, and 7.4 million people have no
power, I note that politicians may be wrong.

The north Pacific itself is already about 30 percent more acidic than it was 25 years ago. That is climate change.

I just spent an evening with my Harvard classmate Bill McKibben, president of 350.org, who sobered me up a bit on where we are. As of May, we had broken
world temperature records for the 327th month in a row. Worldwide, we broke maybe 100,000 temperature records this year. We saw the sea ice melt
in the Arctic, making it possible to move through the region and exploit more oil, deeper than ever. Nice, except if you are a polar bear, or happen to
live on Christmas Island, Tuvalu, or other Pacific countries that are now going underwater. Then there is our food, coming from the ocean to a Red
Lobster near you. The north Pacific itself is already about 30 percent more acidic than it was 25 years ago. That is climate change.

In Copenhagen, in a post-conference accord, 167 countries agreed to not hit the two-degree temperature rise mark. We have already driven global
temperatures up 0.8 degrees. And if we are interested in the tipping point: Swiss Re, the world’s largest reinsurance company, predicts that
climate-change-related disasters will be costing about 20 percent of world GDP by 2020—that’s a scant eight years, or two presidential elections, away. That
will be a costly problem for our economy, and for whomever is in the White House.

World leaders also agreed that we could only burn some 565 gigatons of carbon, and, as McKibben explains, “have some reasonable hope of staying below two
degrees—reasonable in this case means four chances in five…pretty good, except for this is like roulette.”

Here we see the problem on the horizon
speeding towards us and our kids. The fossil fuel industry has about 2,795 gigatons of carbon already in their “reserves.” That is about five times
more than we can safely burn without combusting ourselves to oblivion. But it sure looks good on paper and in corporate portfolios.

Now, I am pro life. It just turns out that my definition of pro life is a bit broader than that of the Tea Party.

The Alberta tar sands (or what is at the other end of the Keystone XL pipeline) represent a big chunk of that carbon—about 240 gigatons, give or take a
few. Exxon itself, with some 7 percent of the remaining carbon reserves, calls climate change an “engineering problem with an engineering solution. “
Exxon’s CEO Rex Tillerson says, “If we need to move our crop production areas, we will.” This is a bit optimistic. Crop production areas are farms,
and they exist on land. You cannot just move a cornfield to the subarctic. And, unless you are divine, it is unlikely you can make it rain when the
farmers need it, without dire consequences elsewhere in the world.

Then there is the pro life thing. Now, I am pro life. It just turns out that my definition of pro life is a bit broader than that of the Tea Party. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s
Sunday opinion piece notes that:

Hard line conservatives have gone to new extremes lately in opposing abortions. In late October, Richard Mourdock, the Tea
Party-backed Republican Senate candidate in Indiana declared during a debate that he was against abortion, even in the event of rape. And Missouri
Representative Todd Akin told the press that pregnancy as a result of “legitimate rape” is rare because the female body has ways to try and shut that whole
thing down.

Wow, that is a really interesting factoid that I, who have a uterus, did not know.

Freidman continues:

In my world you don’t get to call yourself pro-life and be against common sense gun control, like banning public access to the assault
rifle which was used…in a Colorado Theater. You don’t get to call yourself pro-life and…shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean
air and water, prevents childhood asthma and preserves biodiversity, and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet.

I would add that you don’t get to call yourself pro-life if you advocate—by default—for extinction of species or for wars that will result in four out of
five casualties being non-combatants (that is what wars generally cause).

So, where am I going with this column?

I know President Obama does not share my enlightened views on all issues, but I am dead sure that the terrain should be contested.

I am a person of faith, who does not happen to be Christian.

And I am pro-life, in a much larger sense.

I believe that life should include the Earth.

So there you have it. I am a two-time Green Party Candidate for vice president and I am voting for Barack Obama because I am pro-life and want to see our
descendants have a beautiful life on our Mother Earth.

Interested?

The Green Party wasn’t represented at Tuesday’s presidential debate. Here’s what we might have heard if Jill Stein had gotten her say.

Hurricane Sandy might help 350.org prove what’s at stake in a nationwide campaign to divest university endowments from the fossil fuel industry.

National polls show that most of the public supports birth control and abortion rights. So what’s with the trend of trying to limit them?

Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe) is a contributing editor at YES! Magazine, as well as an internationally acclaimed author,
orator, and activist. A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities
with advanced
degrees in rural economic development, LaDuke has devoted her
life to protecting the lands and life ways of Native communities.